Movie Review : “Taken 2” (2012)

After abandoning my ritual, the “watch-movie-alone” at theater, for several months, finally I had a chance to do it yesterday. I decided to watch “Taken 2” instead “Premium Rush” as I was convinced that it would be quite good after I saw several reviews on the internet about the first movie “Taken” (I haven’t seen the first movie though). So with such an expectation, I went to watch it last night. And yes, I watched it by myself.

Surprisingly, I was so disappointed. Even on the first 30 minutes, somehow my mind already could not accept fully the movie. There were so many things exaggerated, but at some point there were also some things that too “casual”. This inbalance proportion along the movie made me bored immediately, and after an hour, I just couldn’t wait to get out from the teather.

So we know that this movie was a story about kidnapping, which is a common idea that used in several movies already. When you heard a movie with such situation, you would expect some elements that will make that movie different, something that will make you always remember and say, “Wow, this movie is good because of this thing which is unpredictable and not available in another movie!” Unfortunately, “Taken 2” failed to deliver that WOW factor, at least to me.

For example, the antagonists shown on the movie were Albanian people who also moslems. From quick flashback, we knew that these guys were family and relatives of the bad guys on the first movie who wanted to seek revenge. The main antagonist was a dad who mourned for his son’s death on Bryan Mill (Liam Neeson)’s hands. He didn’t care what his son did back then (kidnapping young girls for slavery) and he just wanted to kill Bryan as a revenge. That sounds somehow reasonable instead of one thing : why they had to be shown as Albanian moslems? If the idea was just to show that blood is thicker than water and family would do anything for the sake of their members, why did they have to add “moslems” as an adjective and then add cruelty inside their behaviors? This fact alone showed me already how narrow-minded the movie maker was. It was no surprise then if I lost my desire to watch the movie completely.

The action itself was not that good. It was quite entertaining, but there was no, as I said, WOW factor that made me excited, just like when I watched Bourne, for example. It was okay, in some parts too simple and made me wondering that either the bad guys were totally moron or Bryan Mill had superhero power so that he could track and finish the bad guys so quickly, it didn’t even take one day.

Anyway, I would say a no no for this movie, and if I have to rate it, I will give 1 out from 5. But please don’t let my review affects your decision to watch this movie 😛